Abrupt

communist sperm storm consommé-ting
soup rite seed time action

moon pull polyp tide pink slick mucus
micro tube contraction

farmland maximize bleach beach fading
gland knot future fraction

Great green stalk of life
Kindly deigns to coexist
With us pink humans

Out! Out of work –
The workers leave their folds
Into the spacious chaos of
a Texas evening
Bittersweet at the turn of another day

Breathe the blueing sky
its aroma cold
a nocturne of feral cats
slinks in the thicket
Quiet sky, host
to the legions
of an aching beyond
wheeling on and on and on

My car starts with a shudder

across the deserts of the floor
up the walls, down the hall
in diligent segments proceed
a carnivore of the very small,
the vagrant centipede

not a watcher, not a waiter
proactive insect
both a leader and the led
he crawls the sands to find that promised land
where he can rest all hundred peds.

the morning light steals stories
out of night’s linty folds
another centipede curls dying near the wall
its thought complete, its slow race run
it dies, and dries, and crumbles into all

diligent segmented process
gliding across
turning
like thought in the early morning
a wanderer
curling up when threatened
trundling across the deserts of our floor

(some species are highly toxic)

Salt shore,
where the seaweed grows,
and the tide kneads life
                         slow.

Evening gulls’
squawking fades and falters,
and the gulping crows
        revise their last oration.

Little mussels nestle
into curves of soft
green mud,
borrowing space
        from        some        stones.

And a lobster laughs
and a cormorant
follows his fish
                          alone.

***

City, scrape, truck.
Sick surplus.
Rush return to restless wait.
Back again in nexus.

This desert, flesh
rehearsing sermons,
pockmarked shield of mirrors.

Inside, the roaring
tide is pounding, pulling,
pounding at the future.
Unless…
Unless…
Remember something
calming, mussels,
                         still.

This bird’s grating squawk
predates the rusting of springs
and the slamming of screen doors
Yet on porches across America
its metal cry is echoed.

Where do we, in nature’s swelling plan,
find our mirror?

Thanks to the Mother
For her sweet red gift
The answer to every compulsion
Whether chewed on the avenue
Or downed as wine
The apple offers up its service
To pass time and satisfy
The hungry soul
In a hungry world